


Epilogue 1

by 10redplums



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Epilogue, F/M, Multi, Women In Power, canon-typical dnd party - Freeform, unusual paladin pacts, women with ambitions of becoming gods, women with ordinary lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28592271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/10redplums/pseuds/10redplums
Summary: In the end, after the giants, after the dragons, they come home.
Kudos: 1
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Epilogue 1

In the end, Zyra is pleased with Aleth’s performance.

He makes a full report of everything that’s happened since his last one, which is a lot considering between running around nearly getting killed by giants he hasn’t really had the time. She listens without comment all throughout, though her face is expressive enough to make him sweat. Still. She withholds comment until the end.

“You have made,” she says, finally, “ _so much trouble_ for me.”

She proceeds to give him the dressing-down of his life, detailing how he could have done better here, or there, or where she’d had to run damage control. Tells him where he could’ve handled his companions better (Great Old One knows there’s no controlling what those maniacs do, but he’s not about to argue with her). 

“All that said,” she adds, stone expression possibly, _possibly_ , if you tilt your head (which he doesn’t) and look at her in the right light (which he can’t), softening by the tiniest degree, “you _did_ accomplish everything you set out to do.” 

She uncrosses her arms and opens a drawer. He lets a flicker of excitement cross his face and she catches it and raises her eyebrow, and then- _yes._

“Here are the requirements for applying for the position of branch manager,” she says. “You’ll find the list of openings included, as well as the necessary letters of recommendation.” She reads him like a book and deigns to smirk at him as he straightens and holds his hands out, and she gives him the file.

“I won’t let you down.”

“See that you don’t,” she says.

In the end the farm girl, Jess, is there, sitting at the window when Babuk comes home. 

The sun is setting and there’s a fire going inside, and he sees her sit up as he rounds the corner and then she’s running out and leaping into his arms.

“Babuk! You’ve come home!” She presses a kiss to his face and he smiles up at her, and she takes him inside. She regales him with how the farm is doing, what crops she intends to plant next season, that she intends to buy a wagon soon. The lady down the road was widowed recently, and Jess has been visiting every once in a while to check up on her. 

He listens, rapt; she tells him there will be a large dinner tonight to celebrate his return, of course, has he eaten? The witch comes by, sometimes, to eat with them and check on her father but tonight Jess remembers she’s not going to arrive yet, though she may to see the new person. She’ll set out a place for the witch, just in case, as she always does. Babuk will want to meet her, Jess feels.

“And of course,” she says, “I look forward to us courting properly.” That stops him dead in his tracks.

“W-what?” he says. She turns around, pausing in her cheerful plans, putting away her darning. Her smile falters for the first time tonight.

“Unless you don’t want to?” she says, seeming ready to accept this, and- he hurries to her side and takes her hands.

“No, no, of course I do!” He wants to more than anything. “I just- I thought we knew each other well enough?” A smile of relief blooms across her face and she laughs, relieved, and squeezes his hands.

“Good,” she says. She takes him to the kitchen and he helps set up per her directions. “I want to get to know you, Babuk, when the fate of the world doesn’t rest on the edge of a blade. Can you milk a cow? Can you muck out the stables? Will you be a kind husband to me? I must know these things, first.” She’s always been beautiful, but in the glow of her kitchen lights, really watching her take charge, she’s radiant. “I hope you are amenable?”

“I’d love nothing more,” he says.

In the end, it’s the daughter, Lucia, who meets Tilo in the inner parlor. 

She’d been been so young when he’d been run out of town; he remembers vaguely a slip of a girl standing to the side as her grandfather had laughed and laughed and laughed until he could laugh no more, a slip of a girl who’d been ushered from the room along with her little brother as the lord had called for the dogs to be set on him.

The woman now who meets him is tall and strong as a pillar and she nods at him in acknowledgement as he hops off the chair he’d been waiting on. She bids him join her at a table by the window. He takes off his cap.

“My father has retired,” she says, “and I am the lady of the house now.” Outside, her younger brother tussles with some of his friends. “My father had you run out and banned, and I would like to apologize.”

“No apologies necessary, my lady,” he says, reflexively smiling at her. She smiles back, twin spots of color appearing on her cheeks. Well, then. “Though, I would like to know; has the ban… ?”

“The ban has been lifted, sir,” she says, smiling back. “You may return to live in the town without fear.” Her pretty mouth twists and she looks to the door; somewhere in the house is her father. “And- I am working to make it so good people like you aren’t run out of town simply on a lord’s whim. It’s slow going, but a fight I refuse to lose.” That- takes him by surprise. But he nods again. “I truly regret what happened to you. Our grandfather was old and fragile, but what happened to him could have been done by anyone. Our father shouldn’t have done that.” Her fingers twist in her lap and she inclines her head at him. “Thank you for giving us this second chance.”

Now it’s his turn to fidget. Really, the way she puts it… “It’s my pleasure to come back home, my lady. And I got some _incredible_ stories out of it, so I can’t complain about that.”

“I’d love to hear them someday,” she says. “Have you perhaps finished them already?” He shakes his head and she hums thoughtfully. “Well, I probably shouldn’t keep you from it, then. Thank you again, sir Tilo.”

“Thank you for agreeing to see me, my lady,” he says, hopping off the chair and giving her a deep bow. She smiles again behind a raised hand, and sees him out.

Aleth and Cassander are in the outer parlor, Aleth sitting like a proper crime boss masquerading as a lord and Cass lounging like the world’s largest, most dangerous, most self-satisfied cat, both of them contriving to make the butler as uncomfortable as possible by aura alone. The two of them look up as the doors open, and they pay their obeisances to the lady Lucia. They receive him from her, and flank him as he leaves.

“From the skip in your step I assume things went well,” Aleth says when they’re off the lady’s grounds, and Tilo grins at him.

“She wants to hear my stories,” he says, grinning harder. Well, he’ll have to finish them first, but that’s a problem for future Tilo. 

“Really.”

“Gimme some credit, after facing giant princesses and kings I think I can read my hometown’s nobility.”

“But you can stay now?” Cass speaks up, sticking close and looming by default.

“Yep! It’s all clear. Plus she’s working on making it so her dad can’t run me out of town again!”

“ _Really._ ”

“ _Really,_ ” he says, rolling his eyes at Aleth. “Well, she says it’s so the rich and powerful can’t just run people out on a whim. But that’s even better, isn’t it?”

Cass grunts, and then, apparently deeming the grunt insufficient, adds softly, “It’s good that you can stay.” He pats them on the hand.

“And you two can visit, of course!” Cass gives a happier grunt at that. “It’ll be great having you guys around. Now, you’re staying for dinner, right?”

In the end, the lady is rewarded for her patience.

Given Cassander’s failure to pay guild fees over the past year, their membership has been terminated. Their home has likewise been sold, and they’re presumed dead. This is understandable, and will possibly be upsetting in the morning or whenever their body deigns to feel an emotion again. For now, they find a tavern that allows pets.

They don’t think they’ll run out of gold anytime soon, if ever. It doesn’t seem so. But they should find a new home at some point. But maybe they can buy a wagon, too. It’d be nice. They summon Lenoriel again in their dog form for convenience, and lie under the fey creature’s comforting bulk as the tressym, Orion, flies around the room and investigates its new surroundings. They allow themself to just _breathe._

 _She_ comes to them soon enough. 

Gone is the tavern room, the small town, the dirt of travel. They lie upon a silver altar, their regalia marking them as hers, their breath fogging in the air above them. She curls around them, crooning their name.

“My Cassander,” she says. She lets them off the altar. She takes them to her palace of ice. At their moment of hesitation she laughs and waves a hand. Lenoriel stands beside them, a magnificent peryton, dressed for war; Orion drapes itself over Cassander’s shoulders. 

_She_ has no need for reports, for tales by the fire, for published books. _She_ has been with them every step of the way, an icy hand on their shoulder. As promised her love has brought them strength and beauty; now, after it all, they return the favor. As promised, their strength will bring her enemies to their knees and raise her to her rightful place as queen of the fey courts.


End file.
